Hypnosis cannot help with smoking or getting at truth

06/26/92

The Toronto Star

LET'S BE clear about it: there's no such thing as hypnosis! At
least, not the mystical, occult, trance-like state promoted as
Mesmerism, or "animal magnetism," by Franz Anton Mesmer
back in the 18th century.

Hypnosis, the word itself, was derived form the Greek Hypnos,
meaning sleep. It's long been known that the hypnotized person is
not in a sleep or trance state. He or she is really awake and
participating in the practice of auto-suggestion. And that is what
it's all about.

Hypnosis has been given a lot of credit for many things which have
been attributed to an altered state of consciousness, but which
were really done through perfectly normal functions of the human
mind.

Some examples:

Many therapists claim to use hypnosis to help cure people of
habitual behaviors which they otherwise could not shake off.
Cigarette smoking is a good case in point. Now, in many cases the
therapist does help. But it is not hypnosis that does the job, it's
the ability of the therapist to use suggestions that reinforce the
subject's desire to quit the habit.

Then there's the subject of controlling pain. There have been
numerous claims of patients who have undergone dental procedures,
or even surgery, with no painful experience while under hypnosis.

Here again, many people, but not all, can control pain - a
subjective experience - through self-conditioning and relaxation.
And some such cases of surgery which have been investigated have
shown that the outer layer of skin has been anesthetized - and
that is where the majority of pain originates, when the incision
is made.

The so-called hypnosis is definitely an aid to the auto-suggested
exercise.

One of the fallacies associated with hypnosis is that one can get
at the truth through a reinforcement of one's memory.

A recent example was the tragic Kristen French abduction case in
St. Catharines.

There were witnesses who claimed to have seen the teenager forced
into a cream-colored Camaro. In an attempt to elicit more
information - perhaps a license number - the police had a few of
these witnesses hypnotized in order to "refresh" their memories.

It was no surprise to this writer that the effort was fruitless.

There is no authenticated case on record that accurate memories can
be recalled by this method. There have been cases where further
details have been dredged up, but, on investigation, many of these
have been proven erroneous.

Memory recall can often be riddled with distortions. Confabulation
- the tendency for individuals to confuse fact with fiction -
often surfaces when hypnosis is employed. It can, therefore,
introduce an element of distortion in a criminal case, an element
which can have a serious effect on the disposition of justice.
Dr. Robert A. Baker, psychology professor at University of
Kentucky, in his book They Call It Hypnosis writes:

"Our memories are not like computers or phonograph records, but
more like the village storyteller. Our brain doesn't passively
store the facts and nothing but the facts; instead it takes the
facts and weaves them into a plausible and coherent story that,
surprisingly enough, is recreated with each telling."

Dr. Baker conducted studies over a period of almost four years on
the effect of hypnosis on memory. The results: negative.

The question often arises, why do people brought forward during a
hypnotist's stage performance seem to fall under the hypnotists
spell and obey his every command, even to making themselves look
silly in the process.

The answer is given by Peter Reveen himself, the foremost stage
hypnotist of our time. He refers to the "pleasing the operator"
effect - the "operator" being the hypnotist. "The subject," writes
Reveen in The Skeptical Inquirer, "feels a strong inner compulsion
to go through the motions of obeying, even when the only way he
can do so is by simulating whatever effect he thinks the operator
expects.'

The current fascination for the tales of UFO abductions has been
promoted by the use of regressive hypnosis on the fantasy-prone
individuals who claim to have been violated. Here again, the
subject co-operates with the hypnotist who helps impose his strong
beliefs in the UFO abduction myth. Another example of "pleasing
the operator."

It should be stressed that the fantasy-prone are not necessarily
mentally disturbed. They are normal people who are easily
suggestible, and who are most easily "hypnotized." And in most
cases they have read about and been impressed by the many UFO
abduction stories in circulation.

One wonders why these "abductions" are not reported to the
authorities, instead of just being aired in a book and in a movie
bringing profit to the hypnotist-author. After all, kidnapping is
a crime, is it not?



John,
telnet://ricksbbs.synchro.net:23
http://ricksbbs.synchro.net:8080
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